Polsci Tutorial Class 2

Political thought <-> political conditions/events

Hobbes and Locke wrote during English civil war
Lenin and Machiavelli played important role in political events of their time
Recap: conflict vs cooperation
"Right" - sees conflict as inevitable, human nature
Hobbes, Friedrich Nietzsche
"Left" sees conflict as learned
Locke, Rousseau, Tolstoy
Nature vs nurture
Genetics: influence intelligence, temperament. So does culture, conditioning.
The Blank Slate
Human nature: cooperation or competition
Zuni Indians of New Mexico - cooperation, low aggro
Dobu of New Guinea - competition, aggression
Both will have range of temperaments, but different social norms
Benedict Ruth and Cultural Anthropology – Literary Theory and Criticism (literariness.org)
Patterns of Culture (1935) is Benedict Ruth’s (1887-1948) best known work, and
indeed one of the most widely read books in cultural anthropology. Its core is a
comparative study of three small scale, pre-industrial cultures: the Pueblo Zuni
Indians of New Mexico, the Dobu of Melanesia and the Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island.
Dionysian - relating to the sensual, spontaneous, and emotional aspects of human
nature. (cultural anthropology)
Apollonian - relating to the rational, ordered, and self-disciplined aspects of human
nature
Book: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Hobbes: gains of peace through subjection to state > loss of freedom
Locke and Rousseau argued against this by saying that there was cooperation before the
state (Zuni, Dobu evidence of this?)
 Tolstoy, Kropotkin - argued that the state is not serving justice by imprisoning the poor and
defenseless using the police system and the military
cite prison research
Left anarchists cite state power being used to defend the propertied
Transition to Anarchism
Withdraw consent, live as libertarians
Communes
Average lifespan of a commune: religious ones last longer
Proudhon - independent banking system based on labour hours
Labour theory of value

Revolutionary syndicalism - armed insurrection, take over factories

Prompts the question: why obey the state? "Political obligation"

Prudential: state will punish you
Moral reasons
Preserve social institutions (conservative theorists like Edmund Burke)
City of God by St Augustine - state ordained by God to discipline humanity
Plato, Aristitle - man is a social animal who should follow rules of the polity that
created his society
Consent to specific form of authority like libdem state (liberal theorists like Locke)
Implies that even bad law should be followed until amended by democratic processes
Utilitarian: conflicting selfish interests solved by state
Locke saw it as a contract. Hobbes saw it as arrangement giving third party right to enforce
peace:
Rousseau

Essay competition: "Has the rebirth of the arts and sciences contributed to the purification of the
morals?"
Rousseau based his political philosophy on contract theory and his reading of Thomas
Hobbes.107(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#cite_note-116) Reacting to the
ideas of Samuel von Pufendorf and John Locke was also driving his thought

The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said 'This is mine', and found people naïve
enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes,
wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved
mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of
listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to
us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

— Rousseau 1754
In common with other philosophers of the day, Rousseau looked to a hypothetical "state of
nature" as a normative guide. In the original condition, humans would have had "no moral
relations with or determinate obligations to one another".108(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
Jacques_Rousseau#cite_note-FOOTNOTEWokler200147%E2%80%9348-117) Because of their
rare contact with each other, differences between individuals would have been of little
significance.108(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#cite_note-
FOOTNOTEWokler200147%E2%80%9348-117) Living separately, there would have been no
feelings of envy or distrust, and no existence of property or
conflict.109(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#cite_note-
FOOTNOTEWokler200149-118)

According to Rousseau, humans have two traits in common with other animals: the amour de soi,
which describes the self-preservation instinct; and pitié, which is empathy for the rest of one's
species, both of which precede reason and sociability.111(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
Jacques_Rousseau#cite_note-FOOTNOTEWokler200154-120) Only humans who are morally
deprived would care only about their relative status to others, leading to amour-propre, or
vanity.112(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#cite_note-
FOOTNOTEWokler200155-121) He did not believe humans to be innately superior to other
species.111(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#cite_note-
FOOTNOTEWokler200154-120) However, human beings did have the unique ability to change their
nature through free choice, instead of being confined to natural
instincts.113(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#cite_note-
FOOTNOTEWokler200156-122)
"...[N]othing is so gentle as man in his primitive state, when placed by nature at an equal distance
from the stupidity of brutes and the fatal enlightenment of civil man".
 "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of
others are indeed greater slaves than they."
Rousseau opposed the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty via a representative
assembly (Book III, Chapter XV). He approved the kind of republican government of the city-state,
for which Geneva provided a model. Although Rousseau argues that sovereignty (or the power to
make the laws) should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between the
sovereign and the government. The government is composed of magistrates, charged with
implementing and enforcing the general will. The "sovereign" is the rule of law, ideally decided on by
direct democracy in an assembly.

Rousseau

Locke believed that human nature is characterised by reason and tolerance. Like Hobbes, however,
Locke believed that human nature allows people to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction
of currency. In a natural state, all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural
right to defend his "life, health, liberty, or
possessions".48(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke#cite_note-locke-49): 198 Most scholars
trace the phrase "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" in the American Declaration of
Independence to Locke's theory of rights,49(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke#cite_note-50)
although other origins have been suggested.50(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke#cite_note-
51)

Like Hobbes, Locke assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so
people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from government in a state of
society. However, Locke never refers to Hobbes by name and may instead have been responding to other
writers of the day.51(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke#cite_note-52) Locke also advocated
governmental separation of powers and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in
some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound influence on the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Authority
Power with legitimacy
Legitimacy
Established system of law ("Traditional Authority" - Weber)
"In accordance with moral law" - Weber ("Rational Legal Authority")
Both of the above will refer to established system of law.
Can take the form of customary law, libdem, etc
Conflict between both - South Africa - Zulu King (trad) vs President Botha (rational
legal). Both deferred to Nelson Mandela, popular leader (followed because of
personality rather than legal authority) - "charismatic" leaders
Charismatics represent new claimed sources of moral authority. Eg. Mohammad
- God, Nation - Hitler, People - Mandela